Scadutree Avatar... {Spoiler Lore Theory}

[Vulture]

I think I figured out Marika's Original Sin simply because the Scadutree avatar...is a Sunflower.
It really started to bug me why it was a sunflower and not a regular just twisted tree avatar.

So, being a lore nut I looked up sunflower mythology and found the story of Apollo and Clytie. Clytie loved Apollo, yet Apollo had eyes for another. Clytie spoke to her father, the king, and had the other girl buried alive. This angered Apollo so much he punished Clytie by turning her into a flower that would forever gaze at the sun. Some stories have Clytie as a nymph and she fell for Helios instead with the same outcome.

So that's when I figured it out the Original Sin was the actual planting of the Erdtree through Marika's betrayal of her first, and probably most bitter, rival; the Gloam-Eyed Queen. We know for a fact both were chosen Empyrean, both were extremely powerful, and both were Numen. The DLC finally reveals where the Numen origin is; the Shaman Village next to one of the initial impacts of the Finger Ruins.

I feel like Marika and the Queen were originally working closely together, if not in one case or another possibly even on a near intimate level, of which one of the DLC cutscenes shows us Marika pulling what looks to be a rune of the Elden Ring out of a patch of fleshy Godskin.

How is this connected to the Scadutree? Just as the Celtic tree of life shows, the tree grows from both ends but is essentially the same entity. Marika established and crafted the Erdtree through the Gate of Divinity using the assistance of the Greater Will which ultimately and permanently left the Realm of Shadow "beneath" the Lands Between. The creation of this initial Tree, this order of the Erdtree, twisted and manipulated the Realm of Shadow which ultimately led to further warring between the two realms as the Realm of Shadow and it's denizens desperately try (using any manner and mechanism possible) to fend off and destroy the tree to remove what is essentially a great curse.

This is why the Scadutree avatar is _NOT_ a tree-like entity but one of a sunflower. The Realm of Shadow was NOT ALWAYS the Realm of Shadow, it was probably closer related to the Spiral, and that of the Bud (or Bloom). It was generally more aligned with chaos in this manner, but never was it in it's profane state until the Tree was established and GOLD (LIGHT) was separated from SHADOW (DARK). It also goes to say that Life didn't spawn from the Crucible, but that the Crucible naturally comes from Life. By tapping into the very definitions of existential dichotomies (life/death; light/dark, etc) Marika created the two worlds necessary to establish her Erdtree Order.

This forced a sense of Polarization between the two lands, and ultimately lead the Gloam-Eyed Queen in a futile attempt to war on Marika and the Erdtree, only for Marika to seal away the very concept of Death from the world of Life, denying the very power which came to grow within the Realm of Shadow and thus leading to her Defeat by the very power she was forced to mantle.

This is why the Scadutree Avatar is a flower, the original ethos of the Realm of Shadow was that of blooms, buds, and growth. This is why thorns are so closely related to death, because quite a few flowering plants have thorns as a defensive mechanism. This is why scarlet rot manifests as flowers in this world.

The very Scadutree, or SHADOW of the Erdtree, WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE THERE.